For anyone who thinks stop-motion animation is cute, quaint, and comforting, check out The House. In the spirit of something like Henry Selick’s Coraline, this anthology film employs the art form to eerily unnerve. Indeed, all three tales—each of which centers on a stately, two-story home—feel like the fever dreams of someone in the midst of a renovation project that’s teetering on the edge of disaster. The first segment—directed by Emma de Swaef and Marc James Roels and my aesthetic favorite for its rough, hand-crafted quality—follows a young family who makes a deal with a devilish architect to live in his latest project for free. The second segment, involving a mouse contractor whose plans of flipping a refurbished home are undone by unwelcome visitors, is directed by Niki Lindroth von Bahr and anchored by the detailed characterization of its beleaguered lead character. Director Paloma Baeza’s third segment casts a more atmospheric spell, set as it is in a flooded neighborhood’s remaining home, where the desperate cat owner tries to convince her last two tenants to stay. What connects these three, beyond the exquisite artistic talent on display (including an astounding recreation of a lit fireplace in the first chapter)? They all feel like fables, meant to impart some lesson, and I suppose there’s something here about the danger of grasping for things beyond our means. But that also feels a bit reductive. Perhaps the point of The House is simply to watch in wonder at the way the filmmakers manage to softly evoke the sense of sunlight crossing the floor of a room, bringing the dollhouses of our childhoods stunningly, strangely to life.
(1/20/2022)
